Mystic Mantra: Creative living

I hate to make mistakes,” said Ramya emphatically, her eyes flashing resentment. “If I miss something I feel very small, I retreat to my childhood.” While saying this Ramya physically shrunk like a child and her body became almost like a ball.

I was coaching her sitting under one of the exuberant bamboo trees of Osho International Meditation Resort. She had just arrived from the US to participate in the Creative Living programme. A programme that teaches people, how to blend meditation and work and enjoy both.

I asked her, “What’s wrong with making mistakes? If you don’t make a mistake how will you learn? Osho says, make as many mistakes as you want, just don’t make the same mistake again. That is stupidity. A man who can find new mistakes will be growing continuously — that is the only way to learn, that is the only way to come to your own inner light.”

Ramya was wonderstruck as she had never heard of this approach before. “What, we can make mistakes? And no one will punish us for that?” she shrieked.
There! The inseparable relation of mistakes and punishment robs the freedom and joy of making mistakes and learning from them. Why should one be punished for making a mistake? Look at it creatively, the first mistake is so fresh, it is an adventure, the first exposure of consciousness to a new situation. Think of the immense courage one gathers to venture into the unknown risking the known. It needs intelligence to make new mistakes.

Ramya looked at me with disbelief when I expressed all this, “My god! I was always punished by my father for making mistakes. I was spanked, ridiculed, was called stupid. I was filled with rage when he treated me like this, but didn’t have courage to tell him how I felt. This has ruined the fun of learning. I have fear of doing something new, and it has made me a slow learner. And there is a side effect. I can’t tolerate a boss, any boss — good or bad. I immediately project my father on him. Not only that, I cannot be a good boss either because I start behaving exactly like my father. Oh, what a mess!”

Everybody carries their past with them and project it on the present. Creative living means dropping this burden and start looking at life with fresh eyes. Meditation is immense empowerment that gives strength and maturity. I asked her to bid farewell to her inner father, and the frozen childhood that is crippling her growth. She will evolve to a new level of understanding, towards freedom and her own inner light.

Amrit Sadhana is in the management team of Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. She facilitates meditation workshops around the country and abroad.